Whether by design or not, Ridley Scott's return to the sci-fi genre after 30 years has spent much of its pre-release life in the shadow of its seminal predecessor Alien. While the two films do by the helmer's own admission "share DNA", there's an awful lot more that they don't share - in place of Alien's slow-build horror and queasy jolts, Scott goes for instant gratification shocks here. (Warning - potential minor spoilers ahead)
The results are consistently entertaining and at times genuinely outlandish, but create no lasting impression. Dramatic beats occur in isolation; multiple cast members are slaughtered to no emotional avail, and theological questions are half-heartedly raised without ever being really explored.
The crew of the Prometheus - spearheaded by idealistic archaeologist Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace), icily pragmatic suit Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron), smart-mouthed Captain Janek (Idris Elba) and subtly sinister butler-bot David (Michael Fassbender) - are following an ancient star map through space to explore the alien culture that sourced it. Without wishing to go into details, anyone who's seen the trailer will know that their exploration does not go entirely smoothly, and Scott proceeds to messily and creatively dispatch the majority of cast members in roughly the reverse order of their billing.
Rapace's central turn doesn't click immediately, her wide-eyed wonder initially sitting at odds with the general tone of hard-headed stoicism, but as the plot cogs begin to turn she hardens and loosens, becoming the beating heart Scott's sinewy thriller desperately needs. On the opposite end of the spectrum is Fassbender's dimly creepy, precisely calibrated performance. Scratch the surface of any of Fassbender's past characters, and you'll find depths of anguish beneath the placid surface - here, you'll find only a void.
But Shaw and David's strange, blackly comedic master-servant relationship aside, there's no sense of camaraderie or even the vaguest group dynamic between the Prometheus's crew members, which goes some way to explaining why their deaths carry so little emotional weight.
Not every space crew needs to be a close-knit family in the vein of a Serenity or a Star Trek, and Scott's interest plainly lies more in large philosophical questions than human relationships, but numerous directors before him - notably Danny Boyle in Sunshine - have managed to do both, while here he doesn't fully manage either.
That being said, Scott's far from resting on his laurels - there are fresh, audacious moments of body horror, coupled with consistently breathtaking visuals and a streak of wry, knowing humour. But there's no getting away from the total lack of any cumulative sense of dread, nor from the essential emptiness at the film's core. Like Fassbender's discomforting robot, Prometheus is stunning to look at and initially intriguing, but in the end fatally lacking a soul.